Song of Yesterday
by Plutocat
Summary: An off-spawning of Noble Knight's fic-universe. Part first-person point of view, part third. Follows the last few hours of Ballade's life in the last Skull Fortress.


Song of Yesterday

Oh, why you look so sad,   
The tears are in your eyes,   
Come on and come to me now...

And don't be ashamed to cry,   
Let me see you through,   
'Cause I've seen the dark side too. 

When the night falls on you,   
You don't know what to do,   
Nothing you confess   
Could make me love you less. 

I'll stand by you,   
I'll stand by you,   
Won't let nobody hurt you,   
I'll stand by you. 

~*~

It's been too long. 

I'm not the only one who knows it either, Pluto had been restless ever since Terra didn't call in at the agreed-on time. The feline wasn't an alarmist, in fact I always found him to be the most stoic of the lot, quiet, somewhat gloomy, but never jumpy. To see him now perched on the counter, all but shivering in barely repressed tension and nervousness was to say the least unsettling to the rest of us. Ears twitching, tail flicking back and forth, dragging his claws across the smooth surface of the counter, Pluto looked to be anything but the calm, graceful robot I had come to know.

Enker only looked up every now and then from polishing his Mirror Buster, the golden spear lying across his lap in a constant warning to any who would cross his ire. Punk had gone missing as well, only hours after Forte had gone to see if the rumors were true. 

Of course they were true. Why else would the world entire celebrate? The entirety of humanity, set on mocking our losses in celebration while we grieve, alone and forgotten.

"I'm going." Pluto said at last, snapping me out of my thoughts. The purple cat hopped off his perch and straightened up to his full nine-foot height, tail still moving restlessly behind him. "Something's not right. Terra should have called back by now, and Punk and Forte are both missing--"

"Stop being foolish," came the snarled reply from the golden Rockman Killer, running the oiled cloth over his spear again. "We wait here until the Master returns. There is no way they could have killed him." If only I had Enker's faith in Dr. Wily's ability to escape any situation unharmed. Our father was indeed resilient, but this time ... this time I feared his luck had run out. "What if he comes back and nobody's here to protect him? What then? I won't abandon him like that worthless Forte." Disgust colored the golden robot's deep baritone voice, blue eyes narrowed beneath his helm. "So sit down and relax."

If I had done my job none of this would have ever happened.

My job was very simple, my purpose programmed into each and every line of code- Kill Rockman. Protect the Father, don't touch his creations. I had never before had difficulty in these assignments, though twice the small blue android had all but destroyed me. Each time as a show of faith and love, Wily returned me to life, to try to make up for my past mistakes. I would have willingly died to protect him from any harm. Perhaps that was my redeeming quality in his eyes. If only the others realized how much he truly cared for us. Enker knew, as did Pluto. I'm not too sure about the rest, save Forte, who never bothered to hide the fact that Wily was only a means to an end for him. Well, the end was here. 

Pluto bared sharp fangs in a sharp growl before bounding out of the room anyway, to search for his missing commander. I sighed softly, shaking my head. "Enker, it's been two days. One of us would know something by now, we'd have a sign ... they have his body to prove he's dead-"

"SHUT UP!" The dischordant howl cut off my words as effective as a knife through jello, almost flinching back from the grief-tinged rage that had flared in Enker's eyes. "He's not dead! He can't be! He's done this before, everything will be fine.."

It was his turn to be cut off, but this time by loud klaxons that warned of a security breach somewhere in the citadel. Immediately both Enker and I were on our feet, but it was I who got to the controls first, pulling up security data to find out just what was going on, switching on external cameras--

--and watched in numb horror as the proud, elegant Wilydragon was literally torn limb from limb, shrieking in agony, by a mob of ... of ... humans. The mechanical reptile couldn't even defend itself, it's firey breath and sharp talons removing only tens in a flood that seemed to go on forever. Immediately, Enker reached over and released the Yellow Devil, simultaneously sending out a radio call to all active robots in the Fortress. WE ARE UNDER ATTACK! Repeat, under attack! This is not a drill! Get your asses in gear! Then he turned and ran, heavy boots clanking on the tiled floor, heading for the gravlifts to get down to the ground level to try to stem that tide of humanity like so many others were rushing to do. What could I, failed at my purpose in life, do other than follow? I could do some good, strike a hard blow for our creator's name. I was no pushover in a fight if I had to be.

Every Master that had been in the Fortress had responded to Enker's call to arms. We fought back, to protect our last home between the canyon walls as best as we could, with ice and fire, lightning and wind, with explosives and blades and the very ground itself. Wily's army of robots, fighting in a united front en-masse for the first time ever .... and yet the humans kept coming. Tore us away from our brothers one at a time to be whisked only Hell-knew-where for some ungodly purpose or other. I tried not to think about it, at least until my time came to find out, dragged literally kicking and screaming-

The humans closest to the sonic shrieks were left permanently deaf in most cases, but it was a price they were willing to pay.

-away from my bretheren, my weapons systems disabled by brute force, the focusing gems in either plasma blaster shattered by the blows of a sledgehammer that likewise broke titanium bone below, my sonic-enhancement systems torn off and shredded by the crowds with power I wouldn't have believed possible. The last thing I heard before the sledgehammer, slick with my own mechfluids, obliterated conciousness was Pluto's high, feline roars of pain and rage.

~*~

So, if you're mad, get mad;   
Don't hold it all inside,   
Come on and talk to me now. 

And hey,   
What you got to hide?   
I get angry too,   
Well, I'm a lot like you. 

When you're standing at the crossroads   
And don't know which path to choose,   
Let me come along,   
'Cause even if you're wrong, 

I'll stand by you,   
I'll stand by you,   
Won't let nobody hurt you. 

~*~

As Ballade stood pinned to the wooden cross, his wrists and legs bound only lightly by rope that likely hinted at a far more serious fate awaiting, his life passed before his eyes. In a split second, his core processor brought up a jumbled sequence of images in a condensed history of his life. 

He saw himself falling off the Skull Fortress' ramparts when he was only two days old, Wily slapping his knuckles with his wooden cane when he was four months, Crystal Man wiping his brow when he suffered from a strain of computer virus that left him weak and disoriented at one year, Quint lying on Wily's operating table with his generator torn out when he was fourteen months.

Thunder rumbling in the distance brought the images to an abrupt end. Ballade looked up at the sky and willed the dark clouds to part and deliver several bolts of lightning to the massive gathering of humanity. It was probably the only thing that would save him now. That or a sudden appearance of the United States army. Actually, he wasn't sure the army's presence would change anything, they might actually join in in the wholesale slaughter. 

One of the humans sneered as she and another lifted a roll of barbed wire, and a stony voice ordered, "Let's go, there's dozens more waiting." Jeering echoes of the sentiment ricocheted through the crowd. Someone took great pleasure in pointing out that Ballade's skin was the same sickly shade of green as the sky. He hissed in pain as the wire was wrapped tightly across the upper part of each arm, his throat, and securely around his waist, slicing through the light cloth there with ease and digging into the syntheskin below. He felt a hand sting his cheek. "Shut your filthy mouth, robot. This's too good for the likes of you. If I had my way I'd tear you into bite-sized peices and recycle you into bottlecaps."

A clap of thunder split the air in echo of the snarled words, the storm passing close to their position though sunlight still filtered through the clouds in flickering beams of light, and suddenly a great gust of wind shook the cross. The crowd howled its bloodlust, and Ballade watched silently as the humans approached, one carrying a sledgehammer sticky with dark fluids, the others with large metal spikes. The Rockman Killer remained silent, his burgundy eyes holding only a deep grief as they placed the first at the juncture of his elbow; pain exploding through his body as the sledgehammer drove it straight through syntheflesh and bone alike, literally nailing his arm to the wood he lay on. His scream of pain was caught and thrown back in a howl of rabid delight from the gathered crowd, jeering and mocking, wanting only to see him suffer.

Ballade barely felt it as the next was driven through his other elbow, mind hazed with white agony before he was able to slowly beat it back; only in time to regain his senses to feel another placed against his stomach, and the man with the sledgehammer take a prepratory swing. And this time, his own silence failed him, horror overriding grief as he began to struggle, barbed wire slashing cruelly into his skin, dark red mechfluid streaking his suit and armor. "Let us go!" It was a futile plea, one that fell on the deaf ears of a crowd that wanted blood. "You're making a mistake!"

"You," the humans shouted back, in one voice, in one mind, "Made the mistake!"

The hammer swung, his protest cut off by a roar of agony and despair that tore itself from his own throat. Then there was a flash of light so bright he thought his body would surely explode from its briliance.

He heard nothing. No explosion, no voices, no angels calling him to the heavens. He closed his eyes and waited for the pain that was sure to follow, but he felt nothing, just an odd sensation tingling through his limbs. Then he realized his hands were free. He reached for the barbed wire choking him, only to discover that it was no longer there. With a thud he felt himself hit the ground, and then there was blackness.

It was a blackness he found oddly familiar, even as strong hands grasped him and pulled him to his feet, shadows lightening only slowly, the deep, purring voice of Shade Man whisper-soft across his ears. 

"Welcome home."

~*~

I'll stand by you,   
Take me in into your darkest hour,   
And I'll never desert you,   
I'll stand by you. 

And when, when the night falls on you, baby,   
You're feeling all alone,   
You won't be on your own. 

'll stand by you,   
I'll stand by you,   
Won't let nobody hurt you. 

I'll stand by you, 

  
Take me in into your darkest hour,   
And I'll never desert you.   
I'll stand by you. 

Standard disclaimer: Boom. I don't own these characters, any of them. Or the song (Which, incidentally, is the Pretender's I'll Stand By You) As much as I wish I did, I don't, so don't sue me! *sobs*

Read and review, pleeez.


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